


Professional Foul

by neveralarch



Category: Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-14
Updated: 2013-04-14
Packaged: 2017-12-08 10:29:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/760336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neveralarch/pseuds/neveralarch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been half a century since infamous villain the Master brought his powerful family the wrong sort of publicity by destroying a chunk of the universe! The Master's wouldn't mind getting back in their good books, and accepts a job as physiotherapist on his mother's space rugby team.</p>
<p>There's just one thing — one man — standing in the way of earning back his self-respect: the team's Doctor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Professional Foul

**Author's Note:**

> Summary/basic plot idea comes from [The Last Doctor She Should Ever Date](http://www.harlequin.com/storeitem.html?iid=27865&cid=264). Thanks very much to aralias for the beta/running the unconventionalcourtship comm that this was written for!

"I want you home," snapped the Master's mother.

The Master crossed his arms and looked away from the TARDIS view-screen. "Unfortunately I'm rather busy at the moment."

"Busy destroying more of the universe?" The Mother leaned in, scowling. "We had investments in Goldra Nine, you remember. Such a pity that it was swallowed by entropy."

"I didn't do that on purpose," muttered the Master.

"And now I need your help, and you say you're busy!" The Mother gestured at him in despair. "Busy doing what? Turning into a cat again?"

"The cheetah virus is completely out of my system," muttered the Master. He only seemed to have two volumes when he was speaking to the Mother - under his breath and shouting at the top of his lungs. 

"I haven't time to find another physiotherapist," continued the Mother. "The game is in five days, and Daphnitelnia has a strained tertiary plantar. Disastrous!"

"I'm hardly qualified." The Master kept his eyes off the view-screen. The floor, the wall, the ceiling, anywhere but at the Mother's much-more-than-life-size face. Why had he thought that giving over an entire wall to the view-screen was a good idea? He might have used a much smaller, much less intimidating screen in the console, but no. The Mother's enlarged visage glared at him, and the Master regretted his choices.

"I paid for those Academy classes on anatomy," she said. "You got the highest marks."

"I was working on a way to shrink people to death," muttered the Master. The Mother ignored him, predictably.

"If you won't do it, I shall have to call the game off." She blinked suddenly, lip quavering. "Oh, a game without my star player - it would be an insult. A travesty. I should have to sell the team to assuage my guilt, and-"

"I'll do it!" shouted the Master, and shut off the view-screen.

Fine. He would do it. How hard could it be? Certainly much easier than talking to the Mother for another moment.

\---

The Oakdown Omicrons were an old and storied space rugby club. They had played for Omega, back before he became a being of antimatter and incapable of properly enjoying normal-matter space rugby. They were four hundred and seventy-three time winners of the Rassilon Cup. They certainly... manipulated... the balls... with skill. Probably. If that wasn't too lewd.

The Master knew nothing about space rugby. He'd never had time for sport as a boy, as he'd been much too busy dabbling in dark science and trying to ruin Theta Sigma's experiments. He presumed space rugby had at least one ball. Sports generally did.

The Master's TARDIS landed without fanfare at the coordinates the Mother had transmitted. It was a field, on a small planet co-owned by the team managers. The Master opened the TARDIS doors and stepped out into a perfectly partly-cloud day, with a perfectly cool breeze. The grass was even perfectly springy. A group of young men and women were dashing about the field, shouting at each other, and, yes, chucking a ball.

The Master scowled at them. Unfortunately, they were too young and fit and invested in their ball-flinging to care much about a scowly man in black.

There was a small crowd of hangers-on watching the practice, and a man detached himself from the flock to hurry toward the Master. He looked very familiar, with the curly hair, and the overbearing stride, and the incredibly ugly coat-

Blast.

"What are you doing here?" hissed the Doctor.

"I've been ordered to contribute." The Master waved at the athletes who were tackling each other and continuing to treat the ball as if it were as important as an Armageddon device or the secret to unlimited regenerations. "This is my mother's team, after all."

"She's only part-owner," said the Doctor, puffing himself up a bit. "Lungbarrow owns at least five percent of the team."

"What a pity you were disowned," said the Master. The Doctor deflated.

"I've been promised a season ticket if I serve as team doctor for this game," said the Doctor. "I suppose you've been offered a similar deal."

"Hardly." The Master attempted to look aloof from such minor concerns. "My family needn't bribe me to obtain my aid."

"So you've some scheme, then." The Doctor squinted at him. "You know they're playing for the Rassilon Cup in five days? I won't let you have it."

"I don't want it," said the Master. "It's a trophy: nothing more, nothing less. Not everything with Rassilon's name attached to it is an artifact of immeasurable power. I'm here only as a physiotherapist."

"You don't know anything about physiotherapy," said the Doctor.

The Master smirked. "I'm very good at pretending." 

The Doctor squinted at him some more. The team shouted, and the hangers-on clapped.

"I see you escaped the Rani's TARDIS," said the Doctor, at last. "Congratulations."

The Master rolled his eyes. "That was quite a while ago, Doctor. Our time lines appear to be out of sync."

"Yes, I thought you looked older," sniffed the Doctor. "Is that a gray hair I spy?"

The Master didn't flinch. At all. It was infantile, really, and anyway he had touched up his dye-job only last week.

The team shouted again, and began to disperse. The hangers-on laughed, and chatted amongst themselves.

"I've got my eye on you," warned the Doctor, and turned around. "Daphnite!" he shouted. "I've found your physiotherapist!"

\---

The Master had an office, with exercise equipment he didn't understand and medical tools he didn't need. It did have one of those elevated table/bed things, which was useful. Daphnitelnia was sitting on it. The Doctor was standing beside her, because the Master had told the Doctor that conversations between a space rugby player and her physiotherapist were absolutely confidential and that the Doctor was not welcome, and then the Doctor had ignored him. Infuriating, but not especially surprising.

Daphnitelnia was a tall woman, solidly built, but with a floating gait that translated to incredible speed and grace on the field. She was a fourteen-time division champion, and a seven-time Most Impressive Player. The Doctor told the Master this in a hushed tone, and the Master attempted to look as if he cared.

"And what seems to be the problem?" he asked Daphnitelnia.

"Foot hurts." Daphnitelnia wiggled her offending left foot.

"It's the tertiary plantar," said the Doctor. "I've examined her already. Nothing for it except to wait for the inflammation to die down, I'm afraid."

"Can't," said Daphnitelnia. "Game in five days."

"Yes, I know," said the Doctor. "You'll have to cheer your team-mates on from the side-lines, Daphnite."

Daphnitelnia fixed her eyes on the Master. "Game in five days," she repeated.

"There's nothing a mere physiotherapist can do," began the Doctor, and the Master held up a hand.

"I'll prepare a physical therapy regimen for you immediately," he said. "We'll have you back on that foot in no time, my dear."

"I can stand on it fine," said Daphnitelnia. "Can't run."

"We'll have you running on that foot in no time," amended the Master. "I'll alert you when I've completed your regimen."

"Cool," said Daphnitelnia, and shoved herself off of the table/bed thing. The Doctor glared at the Master as she left.

"You're raising her hopes," said the Doctor. "A stressed plantar can't just be exercised away."

"I meant what I said, Doctor." The Master picked up a pad and started scribbling on it. "Daphnitelnia will play in that game."

"You're just desperate to gain access to the Rassilon Cup," said the Doctor. "What sinister scheme could you be planning with that most precious of artifacts?"

"It's a tin trophy cup." The Master drew a few gears, then labeled a few magnets. "I'm simply doing my mother a favor."

"What diabolical design could you have?" said the Doctor, ignoring him. "What evil edict? What malevolent manifesto?" 

"I am simply going to build a machine to eliminate inflammations," said the Master. "Perhaps using nanites, or quantum entanglement. That is all."

"That sounds ridiculous," said the Doctor. He paused. "And very difficult. You'd better let me help."

\---

The next three days were spent in a flurry of science, technical expertise, and those tiny screws that always fall off the table and bounce away into oblivion.

Quantum entanglement had proved to be inapplicable to strained tertiary plantars, so the Doctor and the Master had gone on with the nanites idea.

"Can I have the micro-screwdriver?" asked the Doctor. He was bent over a microscope, eyes glued to the delicate work of handcrafting a nanite. The Doctor's coat was hung up on the Master's office door, and the Doctor had rolled up his sleeves to reveal - well, you couldn't call his forearms muscular, per se, but it was still fascinating to watch them flex with the minute movements necessary to sculpt a nanite's antenna.

"I said," began the Doctor, and the Master picked up the micro-screwdriver with a pair of tweezers. He carried it over to the microscope, arm brushing the Doctor's side as he offered up the tool.

"Here you are, my dear."

"It's been a while since you called me that." The Doctor began to screw on one of the nanite's legs.

"You didn't seem to appreciate the familiarity." The Master leaned over the Doctor's shoulder to watch.

"That's never stopped you before." The Doctor turned the nanite carefully, screwed on another leg. "Nearly finished."

"It's beautiful craftsmanship," said the Master. He was molded against the Doctor's back, now, and the Doctor wasn't pushing him away. The Master had almost forgotten how much he enjoyed working with the Doctor, rather than against him. It was much easier, for one thing, and much more comfortable.

"I'm glad I only have to do one," said the Doctor. "You've coded the self-replication procedures, haven't you?"

"Oh, yes." The Master put a hand on the Doctor's shoulder, just to see what he could get away with. The Doctor didn't flinch. "As soon as you're ready, I can upload the full command structure. We'll have a cure for tertiary plantar inflammation instantaneously."

The Doctor set the micro-screwdriver to one side, and stared at the nanite. Then he lifted his head away from the microscope, twisted to look at the Master. There were rings around his eyes from too long at the microscope.

"Done?" asked the Master.

"Yes, I think so." The Doctor smiled, little lines crinkling around his eyes. "That didn't take as long as I thought it might. I suppose that leaves us with," the Doctor paused, and gave the Master another one of those smiles, " _time_ on our hands." 

They were very close, the Master almost trapping the Doctor against the table. The Master thought about leaning in and kissing the Doctor, or possibly biting him, but it seemed too soon. A more subtle seduction would be necessary.

"Something to say?" asked the Doctor, and the Master was considering a reply when the office door swung open.

"Hey," said Daphnitelnia. "Game's in a couple days. Like a day and a half."

The Master took a reluctant step back from the Doctor. "How fortunate," he said, "that we've finished your recovery assistant."

"Okay," said Daphnitelnia.

"It's a nanite," said the Doctor. "Soon to be several nanites, hundreds of nanites. They'll bolster your strained tendon, and-"

Daphnitelnia's eyes glazed over. She obviously didn't care about the details - every fiber of her body screamed 'stop talking, please stop talking, just get me back on the field.' But the Doctor was uncommonly bad at taking hints.

"-through a coordinated hive-mind, the nanites will act as support until your tertiary plantar resumes normal function, at which point they will begin to die away. They'll dissolve, leaving no residue in your skin, but there might be a slight tingling sensation-"

The Master scooped up the nanite and put it in the programming box. He checked over the code twice - all was just as he and the Doctor had decided. The Master glanced over at the Doctor, who was still holding forth to an increasingly restless Daphnitelnia. He looked sufficiently occupied, so the Master added a few terse lines of code before uploading it to the nanite.

"-did you know that the first human medical applications of nanites were conceived of by Albert Hibbs? Fascinating man, always knew how to find a good time in Vegas, which is more difficult than you'd expect-"

"I think we're ready, Doctor," said the Master. Daphnitelnia's eyes shined with relief.

"Oh, really?" The Doctor blinked. "Let me find the syringe."

Daphnitelnia hopped up onto the table-bed thing, and the Master took off her shoe and sock. The Doctor passed over the syringe filled with rapidly-replicating nanites.

"You'll feel a small sting," said the Master, which was a lie. Nanites hurt like the flames of Sarn (which hurt a lot, but somehow you get better afterwards). Daphnitelnia flinched as the Master pushed the plunger in, but she didn't say anything.

The Master sat back on his heels. "We'll have to wait a few moments for them to take effect."

Silence. The three of them stared at Daphnitelnia's foot.

The Doctor coughed. "So," he said. "How do you like playing space rugby?"

"It's okay," said Daphnitelnia.

"It must be very exciting," prodded the Doctor.

"I guess," said Daphnitelnia.

"Do you have any other hobbies?" asked the Doctor.

"No," said Daphnitelnia, eyes fixed on her foot.

The Master stood up. This was painful to listen to. "I think that's long enough," he said.

"How do you feel?" asked the Doctor.

Daphnitelnia looked at her foot. "Okay." She stood up, put on her sock and shoe again. "I'm going to run around. Test it out."

The Doctor and the Master waited patiently as Daphnitelnia loped around the room.

"Seems fine," she said, at last. "Thanks."

She loped out of the room.

"Success!" shouted the Doctor, and kissed the Master without guile or subtlety or anything except general enthusiasm.

The Master sputtered and grabbed the Doctor's shoulders.

"Sorry," said the Doctor, unconvincingly. "It was the glow of scientific progress. And I have so many happy memories of working with you on new technology in the past - when we were in the Academy, when I was on Earth with UNIT-"

"I was trying to kill you back then," pointed out the Master.

"At UNIT?" The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "Surely not. You gave me CPR once."

"I meant at the Academy," said the Master. "I was hoping that your next regeneration would be less infuriating. I was wrong, incidentally."

"That does explain all the poison," said the Doctor, thoughtfully. "And the stabbing attempts. Ah, youth. Do you remember, back at the Academy? You'd get better grades than I did, and I'd try to strangle you, and then we'd end up kissing under a lab table."

"Borusa was extremely upset," said the Master. "He wasn't sure whether to expel us for unnecessary violence or unnecessary lewdness."

"And back at UNIT," continued the Doctor. "You'd try to take over Earth with the help of some alien race, and it would backfire on you, and we'd end up kissing under a lab table."

"That only happened once," said the Master.

"I think you'll find that it happened practically every week," said the Doctor.

"Are you actually nostalgic?" asked the Master. He still had hold of the Doctor's shoulders. "Or are you bored and toying with my affections?"

"Could I offer you a blowjob?" asked the Doctor, brightly.

This was obviously avoiding the question, but the Master realized that he didn't especially care.

\---

Gameday was bright and cheerful, rays of sunlight catching the players' armor and making it shine. The Oakdown Omicrons against the Blyledge Ballers, for the Rassilon Cup. Hundreds of Gallifreyans were in the stands.

"There would probably be thousands of spectators if it wasn't an away game," said the Doctor. He was standing with the Master at the sidelines, ready to tend to player injuries.

"Both the teams are Gallifreyan," said the Master. "Why have the game off-planet?"

"It has been banned, you know." The Doctor sighed. "President Pandat VII said it was unnecessarily rough, and that he didn't understand the rules." 

The Master surveyed the space rugby field. The field was immense, and from this far side the Master could only just see the faces in the stands and the plinth where the Rassilon Cup was displayed. There were four hoops on the rectangular field, one at each corner. There was a goalnet at each end, as well, and some sort of sandtrap in the center. Four players were fighting in the sandtrap - supposedly over the ball, but the Master could clearly see that another player had the ball and was dribbling it toward the top-right hoop. About fifteen other players were chasing after the player with the ball, screaming insults at him.

"He must have been a philistine," said the Master.

The player took a shot at the hoop and scored. Half of the crowd cheered while the other half booed.

"Oh, no," groaned the Doctor. "Now they're up by seven half-points. We'll have to score a goal in the next three minutes if we're going to catch up."

"Why the next three minutes?" asked the Master, out of idle curiosity. 

"The points have a very short half-life," explained the Doctor. "They start out at ten-half points, but each minute our team delays, they'll lose a potential half-point. It's quite interesting, actually. They have to keep changing the timing to make the game both fair and exciting. When I was a boy-"

The Master deeply regretted having said anything. Luckily, Daphnitelnia got hold of the ball, and the Doctor interrupted himself to cheer.

"Yes!" he cried. "Excellent, this should be good."

Daphnitelnia was surrounded by opposing players, but she turned, twisted, and dodged, pivoting on her formerly injured left foot. In a few moments she was clear of the other players and dashing toward the down-left hoop. A player made a game attempt to tackle her, and Daphnitelnia jumped over him without even breaking stride. A comet of opposing players followed her now, puffing hard, unable to catch up.

The Master took a remote out of his pocket.

"Beautiful." The Doctor clapped his hands. "She's at the pinnacle of her game. Oh, thirty seconds left!"

The Master made a non-committal noise and pressed a button.

Daphnitelnia's left foot sprouted two pairs of giant metal pincers, which scrabbled on the ground, pushing her up above the other players. The pincers clacked, propelling Daphnitelnia toward the Rassilon Cup on its plinth.

"I knew it!" shouted the Doctor. "I knew it!"

The crowd screamed. Daphnitelnia shrugged, and tossed the ball through the hoop as she passed it.

"Goal!" she shouted, but the crowd was still too busy screaming to care.

One pair of the pincers grabbed the Cup and tossed it at the Master. He caught it, and hit another button on the remote. The pincers dissolved, leaving Daphnitelnia sitting on a pile of metal filings.

"This was all part of your evil plan," said the Doctor. "I never should have helped you with those nanites."

"You were making such a fuss about the Cup, so I thought I might as well investigate its value." The Master rapped the cup with his knuckles. "Unfortunately, I was right. Tin."

"Your mother doesn't look very happy," said the Doctor.

The Master looked up. The Mother was rising from her box seat, one hand a shaking fist, the other hand brandishing a staser.

"Run," said the Master, and did.

"Surely she won't shoot at her own son," the Doctor called after him. "Anyway, she's awfully far away."

The Master kept running. Behind him, he could hear the Doctor yelp.

A few moments later, he'd caught up with the Master. "She shot me!" the Doctor whined. "Your mother shot me!"

"Good for her," said the Master, and ran faster.

"In the shoulder!" continued the Doctor.

"Her aim's getting worse."

The Master could hear rapid footsteps behind him, too light to belong to the Doctor. He chanced a look over his shoulder.

Daphnitelnia was coming for them, murder in her eyes.

"That's my Cup!" she shouted. "I got the goal! Give it!"

The Master skidded to a halt, and tossed the Cup away. Daphnitelnia's head snapped around to follow the Cup's trajectory, instantly forgetting about the Master and the Doctor. They watched her run after it, her every stride an exemplar of athletic perfection.

"At least we did heal her tertiary plantar," said the Doctor.

"I'm so pleased," said the Master. He could hear more footsteps, a crowd of running footsteps, the noise getting louder as they approached. He dived into a bush, and the Doctor only hesitated a moment before following.

They landed inside the Master's TARDIS. They sat for several long moments, recovering their breath and their composure.

"I think you've lost me my season tickets," said the Doctor, at last.

"You poor man," said the Master.

"You know, you really ought to make it up to me." The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "I was looking forward to a full season of space rugby."

"What do you want instead?" The Master closed his eyes, rubbed at his face. "Passes to Neptunian ice hockey? An invitation to intergalactic billiards? You’ll get neither. I’m done with sport, Doctor. It's a waste of time. And I'm not buying you a ticket to Judoon Lacrosse."

"I was thinking of something much more mundane." The Doctor's hand brushed the Master's cheek, and the Master opened his eyes. The Doctor was very close, leaning over the Master. In the dark of the TARDIS, it was hard to read his expression.

"I apologize for ruining your game," said the Master, not feeling sorry at all. 

"Oh, I don't think it was ruined," said the Doctor. "The pincers were an exciting innovation - they may even catch on in future games. I really don't think you've done any lasting damage." He rubbed his thumb along the Master's bottom lip, and the Master touched it with his tongue, just to hear the Doctor's breathing hitch.

"I'd like a bandage for my wound," said the Doctor. "And a lift to my TARDIS."

"Is that all you want?" asked the Master. He reached out a hand, threaded it through the Doctor's curls.

"No," said the Doctor, and kissed him.

"Koschei!" screamed the Mother, out of the giant view-screen. "Koschei, you idiot!"

The Master accidentally pulled the Doctor's hair as he scrambled up from the floor.

The Mother's enlarged face was red with rage. "Koschei! Koschei, you're disowned! This is the worst thing you've ever done!"

"That's patently false!" shouted the Master. "I've done scores of worse things!"

"He has," agreed the Doctor.

"Never darken our doorstep again!" cried the Mother. "You interfered with our team, Koschei! You interfered with space rugby! There _is_ no greater crime!"

The Master remembered that he could hang up, so he did. Then he disconnected the entire communications relay.

"Well," said the Doctor. "I think that's ruined the mood."

"Do be quiet," said the Master, and went to find the first aid kit.

The mood was indeed ruined, for the few moments that the Master dwelled on sport, and the Mother, and failed plans. He sulked, in a manly sort of way, as he took off the Doctor's shirt and bandaged the Doctor's shoulder. Then the Master realized that he had a shirtless Doctor in his TARDIS, and the mood was instantly restored.

"I think we should go find a lab table," gasped the Doctor, coming up for air after a particularly heady series of kisses.

"I do have a bed." The Master fumbled with the Doctor's flies. "This TARDIS contains several beds."

"It won't be the same," said the Doctor, wistfully. He pushed the Master's jacket off of his shoulders.

In fact, they didn't even make it out of the console room. Well, not the first time.


End file.
